Thanks to all my reviewers! I was really only planning for this to be a two-shot possibly, but the CloudLeon bug's bit me, and I have like, a bazillion fics I'd like to write of them . :dizzy: But here's the next chapter of this, hope you like!
Broken Rituals- Chapter Two
Things were the same for another week or so, and yet something had invariably changed. It was more significant than merely the fact that they now were comfortable sharing the bathroom in the mornings, with Leon reaching over Cloud's head to get a new bar of hand soap, and Cloud ducking slightly as he brushed his teeth to allow Leon easier access. It was more in the way they didn't feel nervous or self-conscious (for the most part) when doing these things. They even traded short bits of conversations that lasted minutes in length before lapsing back into comfortable silence. But no, it wasn't even in that. It was mostly in how Cloud's cloak hung loose when inside the house now, allowing his wing the freedom of motion, and in the way Leon would pass behind him, letting his fingers brush in a subtle movement over the smooth membrane, earning a fluttering sigh from the blonde.
At first glance, they seemed like insignificant changes, but they spoke volumes of them.
As he walked down the stairs, Cloud following sleepily behind, Leon noted absently that something was missing. He wasn't able to place his finger on it at first, but it became apparent once he walked into the kitchen. There was no breakfast waiting for them at the table, with a humming Aerith at the stove greeting them and asking them if they wanted eggs or bacon with their pancakes. Leon frowned as he stopped in the doorway, and only Cloud's well-trained reflexes saved him from running into the brunet.
"G'morning!" Yuffie waved at them as she sat on the kitchen counter, her stocking-clad legs swinging happily beneath her.
"G'night's more like it…" Cloud mumbled, and Leon ignored it, used to his grumbling comments about the everlasting night. Silver eyes pinned themselves on the grinning girl.
"… Where's Aerith?"
"'Member, silly? She's with Cid, and they're with Sora, and he's at some world or another. I didn't catch the name, but Sora wanted them to help out—"
Leon groaned, "Yeah, yeah, I remember," Stupid of him to have forgotten in the first place. He blamed it on the morning.
"They left?" the ex-soldier's head was cocked to the side, "When? Why?"
"While you were doing your impersonation of sleeping beauty."
Cloud ignored the brunet's offhand jibe, looking to Yuffie for explanation, his large aquamarine eyes blinking widely.
"Oh, that's right, you hadn't popped up yet," Yuffie took a big breath and began spouting off a mile a minute, "See, a while ago Sora came swooshing by as usual, and said he found a world that could use Aerith's healing savvy and Cid's mechanism tinkering know-how, do-how, whatever, but he wanted to seal up the keyhole first before he took them over. And he finally did, so he came, and so they're gone."
"Oh," the blonde looked mildly hurt, "She could have waken me to say goodbye…"
The ninja girl shrugged, "Not like anyone could wake you up when you're out of it, and anyway, she thought you looked too cute sleeping to wake," she said the last with a slightly devious smile, as if there had been more to the joke, and glanced at Leon, who pointedly avoided her look.
"They'll only be gone a bit," Leon added, and he hadn't meant for it to sound like consolation, but the scoff he'd intended didn't quite make it into his voice.
"So what are you going to do about breakfast, then?" Yuffie waved her half-eaten bagel, "I would have gotten you guys something too, but I didn't know what you wanted to eat," her apologetic grin was anything but, and she hopped off the counter and skipped to the door, waving, "See ya guys!"
Leon watched her retreating form and replied, belatedly, as the door was already closed, "Whatever," he turned to Cloud, "What do you want?"
The blonde shrugged, laying his head on folded arms on the table, "I'm not that hungry, I only eat 'cause Aerith makes me."
Leon frowned inwardly. Cloud was muscular, sure, but he was just a bit too thin for his liking. He could see why Aerith insisted on forcing him to eat at every meal.
"I'm making something for myself either way, and if I were you, I'd eat," he left it at that. He really wasn't hungry either, actually, but otherwise, he wouldn't be able to make Cloud eat.
"…Alright, alright," Cloud muttered and sighed, letting his wing stretch out leisurely as he made himself more comfortable in the chair. He saw the veiled threat in Leon's suggestion, and didn't really feel like fighting it, just like he never felt like fighting Aerith's, though he was kind of touched that Leon bothered. At the same time, it was also slightly irking to know they treated him like glass— as if such petty things could re-break him like his whole ordeal with Sephiroth and Jenova had done, "So, what can you make?"
Leon paused and his hand reached up to stroke his lower lip thoughtfully, "I don't know… does French toast and bacon sound good?"
"Uh, yeah," Cloud blinked, "That sounds fine."
"…I'm not really used to cooking… this was something I learned in the orphanage when I was little," Leon muttered softly, and Cloud decided that though the subject wasn't particularly dangerous, it was probably safer to tread around it.
"Me neither. Mother cooked for me when I was little, and once I joined SOLDIER, well, food's just kinda handed to you or bought. Or when we were out on the field, Zax sometimes made stuff," Cloud's mouth turned upward with a slightly bittersweet smile that Leon didn't see.
"I know the feeling. Quistis was the only one of the girls who knew how to cook, but she rarely took field missions. Irivine was usually the one who cooked," Leon chuckled in remembrance, and Cloud smiled to hear the sound, "But usually we went into town to get a bite… there was always a city somewhere nearby by…"
"You were a mercenary too, right?" the blonde suddenly asked. Leon craned his head around to look inquiringly at Cloud before turning back to pour milk into the egg batter. Cloud knew the answer to that question already, so why was he asking?
"Yeah," Leon humored him, "But it was a little different than what you're thinking of. I belonged to what was basically a mercenary organization. Politicians and other people came to Garden to request a job, such as assassinations, or protection, or smaller stuff, and a team was assigned to the job, and then we got paid once finished."
Cloud stared thoughtfully at the back of Leon's jacket, where those two little wings had been sewn on, "That's a very powerful organization. Your world's political hierarchy must have been very wary of Garden. Even if they knew of an assassination attempt, they wouldn't have been able to contest such a large institute. A league of mercenaries…"
"No one could oppose us," Leon recalled, and not without a hint of pride. He had led Balamb Garden, after all, and under him, it had flourished, even after Ultimecia.
Cloud sank into deep thought after that, whether mulling over what Leon had said or connecting it to his own situation, Leon wouldn't know. The pan sizzled and hissed as he dropped the slice of bread soaked in batter on it, and cooked the bacon.
Leon… Leon was an interesting person, Cloud thought. He seemed at first glance like a cold, emotionless tower of strength, but Cloud felt that it wasn't quite that way. In fact, he and Cloud made an interesting pair. At first sight, they seemed almost the same, both aloof, socially challenged, with that pained, mysterious aura around them. But upon closer inspection, one began to see the differences. Cloud was more open, naïve almost, even after all he'd seen, and he displayed emotion and regret just a little bit freer than stone-faced Leon. Leon, on the other hand, had become jaded by his experiences, and tried his best to shut out people, while Cloud tried to find acceptance of sorts. Leon was more easily offended by things, and constantly tried to keep a wall of ice between his heart and daily life, as if to try to protect it. He was frantically hiding from his humanity, while Cloud was desperately trying to find it.
But underneath those layers, one found that they were once again, incredibly similar. Deep down, they were both timid, sorrowful, with pains too deep to bear without a scar, trying to find the fragmented childhood that had been so cruelly torn from them. And they both held a deep, twisted sense of guilt stemming from what they deemed were their flaws—that they were too weak to save the ones they loved. It was their guilt, and even earlier, the high expectations set of them, that had driven them to withdraw from the rest of the world. They had tried so hard to be something, and in the end, felt like they had failed.
"…We're really similar, aren't we?" Cloud murmured, his eyes still focused intensely on the back of Leon's shirt, though they weren't really seeing anything at this point.
The brunet stopped for a moment, as if considering the question, then flipped the toast, "How so?"
Cloud blinked, as if he hadn't been expecting an answer to his reflective statement. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, scratching his head a bit.
"Just… we are, aren't we?" He began hesitantly, much like a student put on the spot by an open ended question, the type that seems obvious, but is so hard to find the words to describe something felt so instinctively. But slowly, his voice deepened, gaining confidence, and his eyes narrowed dangerously, hands folding underneath his chin, "We both have had… things… happen in our lives that have affected us, things we wish we could forget, but at the same time, don't, because it's the only thing we can hold onto that gives us a meaning, a purpose."
He stopped, his voice regaining its initial confusion, "I… didn't want to be a wandering soul… I wanted my life to have meaning, to do something great, or helpful… but, I guess it's what I became anyway…"
Cloud sighed, and glanced up at Leon, jumping a bit as he saw the bruet's incredulous gaze on him. Neither spoke for a moment, and Leon kept his eyes pinned on Cloud, as if he couldn't quite grasp what the blonde had said, swallowing repeatedly like he wanted to say something, but couldn't find the right words, letting Cloud shift uncomfortably under the smoldering silver eyes.
Cloud saw the smoke at the same time that Leon smelled it, and the brunet whirled around back to the pan.
"Crap," he muttered, tossing the burnt bread aside, the tension that was comfortable in its familiarity, but uncomfortable because of its thickness, lessening slightly.
Leon opened his mouth, and for a couple seconds, nothing came out. Cloud waited patiently, nervously wondering what his response would be.
"I… felt the same way. We're similar in that respect as well," he admitted, his face turned away from embarrassment at revealing something he felt was so personal.
"It's a hard feeling to get over," Cloud added bitterly.
"If you ever do," Leon agreed.
"And for those who don't?" Cloud demanded harshly, his fist crashing down on the table, and the sound of his own outburst startled him. He turned his face away apologetically, his voice softening, "Sorry."
"We find a new meaning, a new purpose," Leon replied quietly, finally turning around, holding their plates and setting them on the table.
Cloud sagged in his seat and looked up at Leon pleadingly, "Where?"
Silver eyes traveled over the blonde, from the wing that hung defeated, tip brushing the floor, to the spiked blonde hair, and tracing every feature of the boyish face with a silent plea as keening as Cloud's, "I don't know."
He sat down, took a bite of food, and the conversation was over. And once again, Cloud was left with the contradicting feeling that though nothing had been resolved, something had changed. Something had shifted and settled.
He stared dully at this food, nudging it once with his fork, and Leon glanced up from his plate.
"Eat," he pointed at the blonde, hiding his worried frown with a slight glare, "I don't want to have to carry you home again because you fainted from malnutrition."
Cloud's brow furrowed, "That's never happened before. What are you – Oh. Never mind."
He remembered now, but it hadn't been from hunger that he'd passed out. No, that had been shortly after coming to Traverse, when Sephiroth's image from the Coliseum was still a haunting brand in his mind, and he'd been unable to sleep for days. That day had simply been his reaching the limit, and when Leon had later asked, he'd preferred to lie than to expose himself. And as he would still rather keep the truth hidden—Sephiroth was just too painful a subject to talk about with anyone, even Aerith and Yuffie – he had no choice but to accept consequences of his lie.
"Yeah, so eat," Leon raised his eyebrow, thinking Cloud had turned his face away out of embarrassment instead of shame.
Leon watched Cloud raised the toast to his mouth and take a bite, chewing slowly. With Cloud, he always felt like he was missing something that was very close. He wasn't sure if the feeling was nostalgia, or if Cloud maybe reminded him too much of himself. Sometimes it was almost painful, when he recognized the motions of loneliness, or the faraway look of remembrance. Most painful was the self-loathing that crept into his voice at times, and Leon wondered if Cloud ever felt the same when Leon let it slip through as well.
Realizing his plate was empty, the brunet stood to place it in the sink and wash it, and when he came back, Cloud was greedily finishing his up too.
"Hey, Leon, this is really good."
"… You're like a friggin' vacuum cleaner," was Leon's thanks, but Cloud only chuckled.
"Because it was good, I'm not kidding. I've never had this before," he admitted, "I just assumed I wouldn't like it, so I never tried it before."
Leon shrugged and walked past Cloud, letting his shoulder brush against the blonde's, and his fingers to gently trace the tip edge of his wing in passing.
Cloud only had a split second to see the spread of scarlet on the brunet's face as he paused in the doorway before he turned away, "If… If you want, I'll make some more tomorrow."
Cloud smiled, standing to follow Leon, daring to step a little closer than he normally would, "Yeah, I'd like that."
They're interesting to work with, I love it. Dialogue is so much fun
Review please!